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The bunkering vessel ENGIE Zeebrugge performed in the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium, its first deliveries of LNG (liquefied natural gas) as a marine fuel to M/V AUTO ECO and M/V AUTO ENERGY, the two new gas-propelled pure car and truck carriers (PCTCs) of UECC. The LNG bunkering operations were conducted at the same time that the cargo operations for PCTCs were taking place.

ENGIE Zeebrugge, which is the world’s first purpose-built LNG bunkering vessel, arrived in Zeebrugge at the beginning of April after delivery from Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co. Ltd in Busan, South Korea, and a 38-day maiden voyage. She is now executing a weekly service to the PCTCs of UECC and is the world’s first LNG bunkering vessel to perform regular ship-to-ship bunkering services. ENGIE Zeebrugge loads LNG at Fluxys’ LNG terminal which recently commissioned its second jetty specifically designed for also receiving very small LNG carriers.

ENGIE Zeebrugge is jointly owned by ENGIE, Mitsubishi Corporation, NYK, and Fluxys. With an LNG capacity of 5,000 m3, she will service all types of shipping customers in Northern Europe from her home port of Zeebrugge, under the brand Gas4Sea.

This commercial brand was launched in September 2016 by ENGIE, Mitsubishi Corporation, and NYK to promote and develop the use of LNG as a sustainable alternative to conventional oil-based marine fuels.

The first ship-to-ship bunkering operations are a key milestone in the development of the nascent LNG bunkering market, which needs the collaboration of many stakeholders to gain a foothold: industrial companies, manufacturers, regulatory bodies, port authorities, and shipping companies. The joint efforts of the companies and authorities involved seek to curb carbon and health impacting emissions in shipping and come in support of the European alternative fuels strategy for sustainable mobility.

The collaboration between NYK and DNV GL, supported by engine manufacturer MAN Diesel & Turbo, started in November 2015 and over the past 18 months four NYK container vessels have been uploading operational data to the platform. An extensive amount of engine data has been collected, for use in vessel performance analysis and a condition based maintenance and survey scheme. The pilot project has been run in several phases. The first phase has been to build the required components, such as data collection and data management. The second phase focuses on testing data quality, security, access rights and curation of data for use in various applications such as predictive maintenance and vessel performance. And the upcoming third phase will look to pilot new digital business models.

“Information & Communication Technology (ICT) is growing rapidly and transforming traditional industries. In the maritime industry, we are now at the beginning of an era to pursue ICT-enhanced technical innovations where industry partners form organic collaborations,” says Tadaaki Naito, president of NYK. “IoT (Internet of Things) data produced by ships in operation is the key to such collaborations. We, NYK, need a secure, reliable, neutral, and competitive open ICT platform to share and utilize our data with industry partners, and proper business rules for accelerating data-driven innovations. The promotion of data sharing brings a new opportunity for talented ICT technicians and data scientists to step into our maritime industry, resulting in a co-evolution of our industry with digital talent that allows us to reach higher. We share such open platform concept with DNV GL and MAN, and are cooperating in the pilot process of proving the validity of the concept and building a real working platform by sharing NYK ships’ operational data with MAN over DNV GL’s Veracity industry data platform.”

“We are honoured that NYK and MAN Diesel & Turbo have entrusted us with their valuable data and worked to explore the future of maritime big data infrastructure, value creation and business models,” says Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen, CEO DNV GL – Maritime. “As a classification society our main role is to assess the condition of the hull and critical components. With this pilot project we are able to test a sensor-based class concept where condition-based surveys may be performed. Furthermore, the project has allowed us to test how Veracity functions in terms of data quality, security and access rights. The pilot project has also been a valuable test bed for data standardization and data quality, including curation of the data for further use.”

As part of the pilot project, a hierarchical data model is developed, creating a digital twin, which links sensor signals from equipment on board the vessels to support both simple queries and advanced analytics. Machine learning algorithms evaluate the data quality in terms of uniqueness, completeness, and a variety of other parameters. By drilling down into the data, the ship manager can see if all sensors on board the vessel are working properly and easily identify non-performing sensors which may lead to low data quality or missing data during a voyage.

In May, the NPO Kid’s Door visited the NYK head office to report on the organization’s activities and present a letter of appreciation offering gratitude for the support provided through NYK’s volunteer point system.*

Kid’s Door is an NPO that organizes student volunteers to provide educational support to economically disadvantaged children seeking a higher level of education in Japan. (Website: http://www.kidsdoor.net/english/)

During the meeting, Morihiko Hamada, Chief Content Officer at Kid’s Door, handed the letter to Noriko Miyamoto, an NYK Corporate Officer. Reports from student volunteers were then presented, thus allowing NYK to obtain a thorough understanding of the significance of the company’s support.

NYK will make every effort to remain a good corporate citizen and enhance its corporate value for all stakeholders by continuing the company’s support of employee social contribution activities.

*NYK’s volunteer point system

Points are granted for each form of contribution made by NYK Group employees. NYK tallies the points annually, converts them to a monetary amount, and makes donations totaling that amount to charities.